Before I go on in my rant about why I don’t like list-based blog posts, let me be crystal clear in saying that I do recognize that lists work. I am in no way claiming that they are not a great way to get popular posts. If they didn’t work then their wouldn’t be a list featured on the front of just about every Cosmopolitan cover. (note that there are two lists featured on this cover)

My dislike for them, therefore, does not lay in the results they achieve. My issue is more ideological, or philosophical, or some other sort of -ical.

So why don’t I like lists? The answer can be found within the reason why so many other people do like them. As Abhijeet Mukherjee, author of the post I mention above, says:

The primary reason behind the success of list posts is that most people like to scan, and if it’s interesting enough, read it in full and maybe leave a comment. So, a list post that is carefully crafted with bold headings does a good job as far as grabbing the attention goes.“

Lists are great for scanning. But that’s it. Mukherjee indicates that lists allow a reader to scan and read deeper into what he’s interested in. I disagree. 99% of the time, there is nothing deeper to read in a list post. Therein lies the core of my dislike for them: they are educationally shallow.

Hopefully right now there are half of you booing and half of you cheering. If this is happening then we can have a list/no-list slugfest in the comments of this post and all get riled up. Before that happens, though, I will go into a little more detail about my viewpoint.

Personally, I like reading posts that delve deeply into the subject. I very rarely get any benefit from list post because they do not go deeply enough into the subject matter. If you write a blog post on the “10 best social networks for marketers,” I will learn which ones you like, but I will not know the details of how you formed your opinion. That means that more often than not, I will then look for a deep post on one or two networks that I gleaned from your list. That is just more work for me.

The second reason I do not like lists is really an offshoot of the first. Because lists do not delve deeply into the subject matter about which they are concerned, the writer doesn’t need to know anything about the subject matter. I do not know a thing about Linux, but I could go to Google, pull a random ten Linux-focused sites I find and craft I great looking post called “The Top Ten Sites About Linux.” Think of all the people I would mislead. Conversely, I could not write a post about why one specific site is the best Linux site on the web. That depth of analysis requires knowledge of the subject matter and therefore is much more difficult to fake.

My solution to this lists-work-but-I-don’t-like-them problem is to create a “Deep List”. I have not yet done one of these, but the idea is:

1. Make your list (e.g. “5 best social media marketing campaigns”)
2. Before you post your list, write a blog post for each of your five points going into detail about each one.
3. Publish each of your Deep Posts first.
4. Then post the list with each element of the list linking to it’s respective deeper analysis.

That way, you go deep, provide real value and expertise, but still get a list-based post with which you can rocket to the top of all your favorite social media sites. You get to use the list as a tool, but still provide value to those of us that want more than a surface-level understanding of things.

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First, PodCamp is YOUR conference. There’s plenty of open space and plenty of open times on the schedule. The best experience you have might be in a casual hallway conversation. Take charge of your PodCamp experience by deciding what you want to get out of the event, and get it. If you want to grab some old or new friends and have an impromptu session, go for it. More importantly, help out your community. If someone needs help with their laptop, volunteer. If someone can’t find the restroom, show them. See some trash on the ground? Pick it up. Need help? Ask, ask loudly, ask often.”

Both Brennan White and I attended the last PodCamp and this time we are very excited to be leading a session entitled, “Social Media Marketing is Not Evil.” Shameless plug: our session is on Sunday at 4:00 PM.

In many ways, our session has its genesis in the last PodCamp (a story you will hear in the talk), and has been growing and evolving since then. In particular our session will center around three idealogical concepts that have been fundamental to our company since day 1. In preparation for Sunday we have decided to briefly present these core concepts here for review and discussion. We would very much enjoy hearing peoples thoughts on our ideas and other concepts which people consider fundemental to their own new media marketing tactics.

1: “Mutual Value Proposition”

More so than almost any other idea, this concept was fundamental to why we founded Pandemic Labs. Our term for it has undergone some evolution, but lately we have found ourselves telling clients that social media marketing has to be a mutual value proposition. What do we mean by that? We mean that a properly done and successful social media marketing effort must provide genuine value to both the company AND the consumer.

This may not sound all that strange to you, but think about it. The ads that make your favorite magazine twice as thick as it needs to be don’t add any value to you. They benefit the advertiser and the magazine…they do not benefit you. Television commercials just interrupt what you are watching. I bet only a handful of commercials in your entire life have been so entertaining that you wouldn’t have rather been watching the program they interrupted. But many new media methods allow for the marketing effort to provide mutual value. As an example, look at the myUsearch.com blog. This blog doesn’t have company news and thinly veiled attempts to convince you how great they are. It provides genuine information that is useful to college-seekers (consumer value), and therefore drives consumers to myUsearch (company value).

2: “Consumer Primacy”

An offshoot of our concept of a mutual value proposition is the idea of consumer primacy. To get right down to it, “consumer primacy” is just a fancy way of saying, “put the consumer first.” This is a very difficult thing for many companies and brands to grasp. Even many people who have genuinely embraced the idea of mutual value still plan social media marketing efforts based on how those efforts will help their company. When approaching things from this side, you will invariably make a campaign that is more valuable to you than it is to the consumer. It is just human nature…we naturally think of ourselves first.

To remedy this, do and exercise and only think of things that are valuable to the consumer. Make a list…don’t be afraid to list things that would cost your company a lot of money and have absolutely no apparent marketing ROI. Now that you have a list of things that are genuinely valuable to the consumer (informative blog, educational videos, entertaining website, etc…) look at the ideas from your side. Now you can be selfish. Find the one where you can also make it a valuable marketing tool for the company. Approaching things like this will ensure consumer primacy and, in turn, ensure that you marketing initiative is a true mutual value propisition.

3: “Collateral Benefit”

The final concept in the trio is the idea of “collateral benefit.” This is something which can be easily seen in the world of social media. At it’s basic level, it refers to the ability to benefit multiple people by publically interacting with one. We see this all the time on forums. One person asks a question about how to do X with Y. Another person answers. That is a one-to-one interaction…the answerer only had to exert effort to benefit one person. But because the interaction took place in a public forum, everyone else reading that question also benefited from the answer. This is the inverse to the military idea of collateral damage. It is more efficient and preferable to use one bomb to destroy 10 buildings than it is to use 10 bombs to destroy one building each. In our forum example, there might be 100s of people who benefited from the answer, but the answer only had to be given once. It is a clear case of collateral benefit.

With this in mind, we can begin to theorize how marketers can apply the concept of collateral benefit. What if I could could have a positive effect on 10 consumers by interacting with only one? That would save money and time. Ways of doing this are a big part of many of our newest social media campaigns and, as much as I would like to, I can’t go giving away all the details here.

Conclusion

If you are in Boston, you should come to PodCamp3 this weekend. If you can’t make it, make sure to check back here next week for all sorts of good updates and ideas from the conference. I hope you all have a great weekend.

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One of the world’s biggest publishing houses, HarperCollins, went even further and built a book trailer studio in their offices that will have the capacity to create 500 book trailers a year. This is a sign that established players in such an old-fashioned and non-technical industry like book publishing are recognizing and unleashing the potential of viral videos.

Perhaps one of the best examples out there for a successful book trailer is the short movie that came out of this idea for the book “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein. When she finished writing this book about the “secret and dark history of capitalism” and how governments have used the aftermath of every major crisis in history to induce radical political measures, she sent the book to Alfonso Cuarón, the Mexican award-winning director of Children of Men. Teaming up with him and his brother Jonás Cuarón, they created the short film/book trailer “The Shock Doctrine” that even landed a couple of film festival award nominations in Venice and Toronto. The book’s website ShockDoctrine.com is rich in social media elements and leverages the success of the book trailer, making it a central part of the online presence of the book and the author.The short movie itself is not an ad for the book, it’s more a short documentary that explains the central thesis of the book. Representing a good recipe for a viral video, “The Shock Doctrine” engages the viewer in the think process of the author and leaves him begging for more.

In this case, the attributes of an excellent filmmaker combined with an interesting thought proposition, resulted in a successful viral video effort that has more than 600,000 views in YouTube and contributed to drive sales for a traditional-media product: a book.

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Napoleon, a 24-year-old Captain at the time, had set up a gun battery in a forward position. In fact, the battery was so far forward that Napoleon’s superiors said he would never get anyone to man it. The battery was so close to the enemy and so exposed that to take up the post meant guaranteed death by enemy artillery. Indeed, the first men ordered to the post refused. Undeterred, Napoleon had one of his sergeants create a wood placard with a message on it and place the placard on a stake near the gun battery. The message on the placard read: The Battery for the Men Without Fear. The position was manned day and night from that point on by soldiers eager to prove their heroism, and Napoleon’s battery dominated the city’s harbor. The resulting withdrawal of the British Royal Navy led to French victory and the start of Napoleon’s illustrious career.

So what does this teach us about marketing? Speak to people’s deepest emotions in order to succeed.

Here are some of those deep emotions which, when activated, lead people to take action:

1. Pride (specifically in one’s background, country, religion, etc…)
2. Manliness or femininity
3. Feeling of safety

Of course, the idea of appealing to these elements within people is not new. You can see each of the three above examples in any Chevy truck commercial. If you drive a Chevy truck you are not only safer than others on the road, but you also manlier than non-Chevy truck drivers, and also more proud of America. Chevy hits as many of your emotions as possible. But wait, what about Ford? Ford’s commercials say their trucks carry more weight and make you more manly. And then there’s Dodge, and Toyota..oh damn, they all say they are the most manly. One can pull a train, one can stop an airplane, one can drive off after a 3-ton rock is dropped in its bed. This is the equivalent of Napoleon having four gun batteries and placing the same placard in front of all of them. It wouldn’t have worked. A superlative is, by definition, an exclusive thing. There can only be one best, manliest, sexiest, bravest, —–est.

So, continuing our truck example, we have four pickup trucks lined up in front of us. Each truck has a wooden placard in front of it saying: Truck for the strongest men.

Confused, we all stand in a clump staring at one sign then another then another. Noticing our apparent confusion, the makers of Dodge, Chevy, and Ford quickly decide to tap into a different emotion. We watch as a new sign is posted in front of each of the three trucks saying: Truck for men who really love America.

Hmmmm…

Well, now we’ve pretty much turned away from Toyota because we all want to support America. But, we still stand in confused clump, unsure of which truck to choose because they all claim the same superlatives. Noticing this, the makers of the trucks go to great lengths to show us how strong their truck’s frames are, and how they perform in crashes. They each post a third placard in front of their trucks saying: For men who love their families.

I’m sure you can all see the pattern here. I will not go further into the unending stream of wooden placards shown to us. The point, I’m sure, is obvious. If everyone is “the best,” then no one is.

So what does this teach us about marketing? I think it teaches us that what was revolutionary for Napoleon is now commonplace. Napoleon “thought outside the box” and chose to approach his men though different channels than just passing orders down the chain of command. Today, however, Napoleon’s tactics are very much “in the box.” As such, it is important that marketers pay special attention to how the competition is appealing to consumers; not to mimic it, but to intentionally take a different course.

This is especially true in online marketing where the ability to target consumer micro-segments is unprecedented. Find the people you want and then hit their emotions in ways that they haven’t been hit before. At first it is likely scary, just like it would be scary to tell Ford to stop fighting the “I’m more manly that you are” fight. But, if you take a second and step back, move outside the traditional marketing dogma under which you were trained, you will see the true genius of Napoleon: Approach people differently than they are currently being approached.

Be different. Prove your superiors wrong. Lead people to the actions you want them to take. Market like Napoleon.

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In fact, Wikipedia is the 7th most visited website in the world, according to Alexa, with 52% of its page views coming from the English version of the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is the worlds biggest and most successful wiki, but there are thousands of niche wikis out there and due to their collaborative and social nature, they should be part of any social media marketing strategy.

Marketing on Wikis

• Many wikis let you make updates anonymously. Ideally, you should log-in and create an identity. Be honest and be yourself.
• Don’t use wikis for self-promotion. It is not intended for that and your entry will end up being deleted or at least edited.
• While you want your business or brand to be added, it is better to build out complementary and appropriate information as part of adding your business. For example, if you are a professional social media marketing consultant, you’ll want to add content to the definition of social media or the definition of marketing.
• It is OK to correct mistakes, it is not OK to remove competitors.
• When you add a new page, make sure you start with the template that is appropriate. If you make mistakes, other people will fix them, and if you spam with inappropriate content, other people will remove you.

It is important to have a clear picture of what wants to be achieved with wikis. The main professional aim on Wikipedia or other important wikis should be tracking and managing what is said about you, your brand or your company. At least in the case of Wikipedia, their links are far too influential for anybody to ignore its content, especially given the public’s misunderstanding of its liberal editorial policies. It is also a very good way to contribute your knowledge of your market or the focus of your business to the community. Wikis should not be looked at as a tool to generate links or to increase a website’s page ranking. In fact, all links on Wikipedia are “nofollow”, meaning that they are not counted as a link by Google or the other search engines, which use links as part of their ranking algorithm.

Wiki Etiquette

There is a set of unwritten rules that will ensure a successful use of wikis as marketing tool.The bottom line is that any significant wiki community will be very vigilant and strictly opposed to biased information. Any effort to enhance a Wikipedia listing should make sure that it aware of and follows the established guidelines. That said, here’s a guide to creating a new page in Wikipedia.

Niche Wikis

This is a short list of niche wikis, which can be relevant to specific businesses or brands:

• WikiTravel: the wikipedia of travel.
• Dealipedia: a business wiki for mergers, acquisitions, venture investments, IPO and other deals.
• LyricWiki: all the lyrics you can handle.
• WikiMapia: collaborative mapping.
• Wikia: community supporting the creation and development of wiki communities on any topic people are passionate about. Currently, they support over 6000 communities in more than 70 languages.

While wikis allow very little deviation from the established rules and customs, if you pay attention and follow the rules, wikis offer an extremely powerful forum for enriching the community and associating your online brand with intelligent and useful content.

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And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.” -Revelation 6:8, KJV

As many of you know, I am an avid reader of Kevin Nalts, who writes on his blog WillVideoForFood. I’ve been following him since before I started this company, and I have discussed some of his thoughts on viral videos before. It’s been some time since I last mentioned him because, unfortunately, I only bring him up when I disagree with him. Nalts: if you’re reading this, sorry for that. Everyone else: I highly suggest you check out his blog and follow it closely.

In all truth, it is not Nalts’ most recent post, entitled Video Sponsorship Trends: “Cashing In” or “Selling Out”, that I really take issue with. His post is really more like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Well, it didn’t really break my back, it just gave me the nudge I need to write this post which has been simmering inside me for a month now.

The Crux

The central theme here is the debate/argument over the relative virtues or evils of paid advertising (often in the form of product placement) that tries to seem like it is not advertising. If your favorite video blogger on YouTube talks about the new camera they are using, they might have been paid to do so by the maker of that camera.

(insert cheezy horror music here.)

How are you to know if it is a genuine product mention or a paid plug?

(insert confused face of an actress in an infomercial here.)

Many would have you believe that this situation represents a serious problem, tantamount to danger for the helpless, unsuspecting consumer.

The Views

Nalts’ article discusses another article written by Jennifer Hollett called Viral Video: Cashing In or Selling Out? I recommend reading it as well. The article brings forth different views on the matter. Nalts says, “It can help creators derive revenue, and therefore the quality of videos should improve. I think it’s great for brands because they can now access the audience in different ways than a pre-roll or a banner.” Then there is Kalle Lasn, editor in chief of Adbusters magazine and author of Culture Jam, who says we are already hit with 3,000-5,000 marketing messages every day. “I really don’t think we need 5,001,” he says.

This last view is tame compared to many that I have heard of late. As a digital marketing professional, I attend my fair share of web 2.0 conferences in the Boston area, and there are some times when I feel that I am almost not welcome. How dare I, a marketer, besmirch the purity of web 2.0! How dare I talk about how Twitter can be a powerful marketing tool for large companies! How dare I talk about the possibilities of hiring web video stars to create great content for your brand! I’ve heard people say that new media marketing is a black-hat endeavor. Frankly, I don’t agree.

The Spark

At this point the savvy among you are saying, “So Matt seems to agree with Nalts’ point of view…why did Matt say he disagreed with Nalts at the beginning of the article.” Fear not, we have arrived at the much awaited point of contention. Now that we have set the stage, identified the issue, and seen some viewpoints, we are ready to go.

At the end of his post, Nalts gives some predictions for what will happen around this issue in 2008. In those prophecies he says:

I wish there was a law that required film makers to disclose any paid advertisers, even though I know much of the ‘product placement’ is offered free by directors. Federal Express, for instance, does not often pay to have its boxes appear in a film. The directors want the film to feel authentic, and seek permission not pay from FedEx to avoid needing to distract viewers with a Garbagepatch Kids-like bastardization of FedEx (FoodEx). In the end, however, I feel like the video creator owes me, as the viewer, disclosure. If you’re getting paid to hold a Mountain Dew, more power to you. Just let me know, so I don’t feel like you’re being sneaky every time your camera pans a mall and I see logos.”

It is on this point that I wholeheartedly disagree. My viewpoint follows…

My Stance

I think that any law (or even regulation) that required disclosure of advertising efforts is not only unnecessary, but also counter-productive. I do not feel that the content creator owes me anything of that sort, nor do I label you as nefarious if I notice you are drinking a Coke. I will try to delineate my arguments here:

1. Squashing Creativity: I think that anything where content creators of any type are forced to disclose behind-the-scenes elements of their creation does nothing but stifle the free reign they might have to “go nuts” and create some really entertaining stuff.
2. It Doesn’t Matter: There have been a bunch of viral videos that we have all watched and we likely weren’t aware that some of them were paid plugs. I just learned from Kalle’s article that the Guy’s Backflipping Into Jeans video was a Levi’s spot. Now that I know that…nothing has changed. I am not angry that I didn’t know that before. I do not feel violated because a corporation entertained me without my express permission. I do not see the damage caused by these marketing methods (i.e. product placement, branded entertainment, etc…), and therefore I do not understand why there is such a fuss about it.
3. How Far?: How far would this regulation stretch? We all know that Tiger Woods is paid to wear Nike clothing on the course. But what about the random guy in the middle of the pack who is wearing an Adidas shirt? Maybe he isn’t good enough to warrant sponsorship. Maybe he is just wearing a shirt and the logo is there like it would be on any other average person. But, maybe Adidas is paying him. In this case we can’t know and we might be duped by marketers. So does this mean that under new regulations all sponsored shirts on the golfers would have to say “sponsored by: Nike” on them? If full disclosure were required in one form of advertising, wouldn’t it have to be required in all?
4. Good Will Out: I believe in the power of a complex system to fix itself. In this case the “fixing” will be rather simple. The content creators out there who are just marketing whores and never provide value to their audience will quickly lose that audience. It’s like evolution. Audience (attention) is the scarce resource and the content creators will have to compete to get that resource. Done correctly, the help of money made from working with marketers could help a content creator thrive. But if that is abused, the audience will dry up real quick, leaving you alone to wither an die. It is survival of the fittest. We already see it taking place with blogs. When is the last time you saw a blog worth a damn that did frequent sponsored posts? One of the fundemental tenets of the evolution of the internet is that it allows for a bottom-up flow of information rather than a top down. So, it a bottom-up world there would be no need for top-down laws.
5. Maybe It’s Better: I think there is tremendous potential in product placement and branded entertainment and other forms of so-called “sneaky” marketing. If Coke pays my favorite video maker so that he can put out a great webisode every week I am fine with it. Especially poigniant here is the possibilities for the extinction of the terrible and badly targeted TV commercials we current have to put up with. If Tampax pays to sponsor the “women’s interest” channels on various video sites, and therefore I never again have to see a tampon ad on TV, that would be worth it. If Viagra sponsors funny videos about aging and sex and therefore my girlfriend never again has to see an six ED ads during her favorite show, that would be worth it.

Conslusion

As always, I welcome and encourage discussion and - dare I say it - disagreement. As a new media marketer who believes wholeheartedly in Web 2.0 ideals, I am a little tired of being blamed for ruining all that is good about Web 2.0. I simply don’t see it that way and obviously there is a lot more talking to be done. No one really knows what works yet and what the future of marketing is going to look like. This is why we have blogs this…so we can learn together.

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What does the ‘viral’ in ‘viral marketing’ actually mean?

I’ve recently run into some confusion when talking to the viral and social media marketing crowd. While the issue wears many guises, it boils down to a disagreement regarding the definition of the word ‘viral’ in the term ‘viral marketing’.

Most recently in my own life, the confusion surfaced during both a client discussion and in the comments of my most recent viral marketing post. Both instances of miscommunication occurred for exactly the same reason: I had a different take on the word ‘viral’ than the others involved. This confusion raises a legitimate question: Does the ‘viral’ in ‘viral marketing’ refer to a result or a strategy?

Max Gladwell (@maxgladwell on Twitter), in the comments of a recent PandemicBlog post, pointed out that by referring to Pandemic Labs as a “viral marketing company” we were misleading people and that “Viral is an outcome, not a strategy.” I found this very intriguing for two reasons:

1. I have previously heard the opinion that viral refers to an outcome yet I personally don’t see it that way and have never used it in this manner.
2. He followed up his objections with thoughtful explanation which helped me understand the crux of the issue, understand his argument and question the validity of ‘viral’ being used at all.

As Max pointed out, the term “go viral” is often used to refer to a huge, blowout success; a pandemic. This phrase, more than anything I’ve come across thus far, seems responsible for some of the confusion. As this phrase is equating ‘viral’ with success, Max’s opinion is clearly a legitimate conclusion.

That said, my own understanding of ‘viral’ is distinctly different. To me, ‘viral’ denotes the specific distribution strategy of a piece of online media. Based on the precedent set by other types of marketing (online marketing, television marketing, email marketing, etc), I built my business around the idea that ‘viral’ described the means by which the marketing uses to spread the message.

By my logic, when referring to a viral marketing effort, you know the piece of media will largely be spread around by online word-of-mouth, email and other person-to-person means. Understandably, the viral itself requires person-to-person spread like it’s namesake the biological virus. The individual-to-individual contact inherent to the spread of a virus is the important difference between viral marketing and other forms of “blast the consumer from one source” marketing (television, radio, print, etc).

Viral marketing does not guarantee success. Indeed, there are no forms of marketing or advertising that do. It is simply a newer strategy that has recently become available to marketers that has been named after a pre-existing biological process that it closely resembles. I do not think “viral marketing” should have unreasonable expectations laid on it just because the term “go viral” has gained a certain meaning in our modern lexicon.

My own opinions aside, Max’s point still stands and this leaves us, the marketing community, at a crossroads.

1. Do we standardize on one of these definitions for clarity?
2. Do we recognize going forward the validity of both and make sure to clarify when important?
3. Do we seek another name for this person-to-person type of marketing to avoid the confusion altogether?

Personally, I feel ‘viral’ is an unfortunate but accurate moniker for what we do. The spread of a piece of viral media is very similar to the spread of a biological virus. The similarity lends itself to sharing a name. However, the shared name is what is limiting people’s thinking and causing confusion (this isn’t even taking into account the aversion people have to anything ‘viral, but that’s another post entirely).

When next the marketing community invents a type of marketing, might we give it a name entirely its own and skip the confusion?

Thanks to Max Gladwell for inspiring this post.

I’ll continue the discussion in the comments as usual. I await your thoughts.

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I am a career marketer whose work experience has always been linked to CPG companies and traditional marketing. I recently moved to the U.S. for an MBA and viral marketing crossed my way. I have to confess, I am a complete neophyte in the matter; and most of the jargon, web pages, and terms related to it are new to me.

To understand Social Media Marketing I got started with Dosh Dosh. This blog is really good, especially for people who lack the basic knowledge. It puts Social Media Marketing in easy, understandable words (a must for people interested in SMM). It has a series of articles called “Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing” that are a great starting point for newcomers. One thing got me thinking while reading this blog, and it was the article on “Social Media Networking and ROI (#7 of the series)”. For traditional marketers ROI is an obsession, so I was surprised to see a complete article dedicated to this for alternative marketers.

Why is ROI so important for marketers? Because they made it their ultimate goal. There is a joke that defines economists as people who spend half their life predicting what will happen, and the other half explaining why it didn’t happen. I think this also applies to brand managers. They spend half their time trying to convince their bosses to increase the promotional budget, showing how it will be a great boost for sales (great ROI), and then the other half explaining why the ROI was not as expected. They don’t seem to know that marketing itself does not sell. There are infinite variables that have great impact on sales other than advertising, packaging and promotions, so the success or failure of marketing should not be measured by the ROI.

Marketers need to understand the importance of managing and positioning brands, and investing resources to achieve this. Their goal should not only be increasing sales, but also increasing brand awareness, ranking better on top-of-mind, improving the consumer’s perception of the product, etc. Most of these goals are not tangible and don’t translate into sales in the short term. But they are the ones that make a brand successful in the long run.

Dosh Dosh’s article on ROI makes an important point in telling readers to have very clear objectives for Social Media Networking. This should also be true for any kind of marketing campaign. Achieving these objectives should be the only metric when determining whether or not a campaign was successful… regardless of the ROI. If the objectives are aligned with the brand’s strategy, then reaching them will guarantee a positive ROI.

Juan is Pandemic Blog’s newest contributor. If you’d like to read more from Juan, subscribe to our feed or leave a comment.

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140 Characters to promote your brand

Several brands are using Twitter as part of their online marketing strategy. Moreover, they are engaging users by being in a position where they can penetrate their “circle of trust”, which in Twitter is the circle of the people they follow. Here is a list of companies (and their number of followers) that are using Twitter to inform “fans” of upcoming products, events, promotions, announcements, etc. In the case of Amazon, their Twitter profile works as a Book Finder; if you send them a message with a book title or ISBN, they answer back with the book’s price.

• Carnival Cruise Lines (249 followers)
• Apple Inc (2,467 followers)
• Intel Software Network (160 followers)
• PodTech Network (1,163 followers)
• Barack Obama (37,544 followers)
• Zappos (6,352 followers, Zappo’s CEO is twitting)
• H&R Block (482 followers)
• Amazon’s Book Finder (328 followers)

The mechanics of influence

The Twitter community is made up of highly engaged, pro-technology early adopters that look to enrich their Twitter activity by following important, interesting and influential members, as well as friends, relatives and colleagues. Being an “influencer” community, it is likely to shape the direction, preferences and opinions of others. The more followers a Twitter members has, the more influential he or she is and the more impact his thoughts, recommendations, complaints, reviews and comments will have. Like any other online tool that has reached a critical mass, there has to be an overall strategy in place in order to include it in a social media marketing campaign.

The Twitter pulse

The instant and constant nature of Twitter posts, and their ability to be generated from everywhere (thanks to Twitter integration with mobile phone devices via texting) opens the door for a parallel universe of user-generated content. Tools like Summize or Twist let the user search for a specific word in the “public timeline” and Twist also allows the search for trends of a specific search term against another. Twitter can be an excellent tool to see what is being said in real-time about your brand and manage your online reputation. Moreover, it let’s you socialize the way you manage your digital footprint. It is important to know that the Twitter pulse is representative of a certain segment of consumers and that this segment is highly influential and highly opinionated.

Bernardo Sosa is a new member of the Pandemic Labs team and he will be blogging here regularly.

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Read Write Web recently fielded a great article that caused interesting debate within our viral marketing company, and I thought it would be worth sharing. The article focused on how Generation Y (born between 1982-1997) is going to “change the web” and what makes a Gen Y-er different from the previous generations. Some of the notable (debatable?) facts about Gen Y when viewed from a social media marketing perspective:

1. TV Isn’t King
2. They Don’t Care About Your Ad, They Care What Their Friends Think
3. Marketing Has to Change

I agree so strongly with these three notes in particular that I formed this business based on them! But the discussion that followed the article brought up some points that I thought worth getting blogosphere feedback on.

1. If TV isn’t king what is? Stats show that TV quality content is still extremely popular (might we say king?) online. If this isn’t King, what does something need to do to be ‘King’? My main feeling is that TV as a medium is dying due to one main factor: Interruption marketing. What is the first thing a DVR/TiVo owner does? Skip all commercials. One of my colleagues asked “why?” when this point was brought up. I think the better question is “now that the possibility for freedom is there, why does anyone EVER WATCH TV commercials?”
2. Gen-Y (and many older folks) are supposedly of the opinion that “your ad doesn’t matter”. I would have further refined this point to be “your poorly-targeted, uninteresting ad doesn’t matter”. Look at the viral success of some interesting, funny or amazing online ads. Are they THAT hard to understand? Are they random, unrepeatable anomalies? I say no. They all engage the consumer in a way that the consumer WANTS to be engaged. Putting a TV commercial online and then complaining that viral marketing is failing is like putting a Mustang in the ocean and telling Ford their cars don’t work! I think ReadWriteWeb had it slightly wrong. Gen Y-ers like relevant, engaging ads. They watch the Superbowl for the ads, they forward amazing online ads. Gen Y is responsible for the huge success of some viral campaigns. It’s the overwhelming failure on the part of the ads to understand the medium and earn attention that Gen-Y disagrees with, not advertising in general.
3. “Marketing has to change” is about as timely and insightful an observation as someone showing up to the D-day beaches on June 10th, 1944 and proclaiming “something big just went down”. Maybe they were being “simple” for simplicity’s sake, but think comments like that reassure marketers in a terrible way. With that comment, we’re askin g people to ignore and delay the inevitable. “It’s OK, other people who ‘get it’ are just beginning to understand this new wave of marketing. I can spend five more years of marketing budget before I turn my brain on.” So much content is available online now (print, radio AND Television content) that advertisers who aren’t wising up don’t have much more time as the space is rapidly being conquered by the forward thinking outfits who are willing to “brave” the lands where consumers are in control of what they spend their time on.

I would say I think very much like a Gen Y-er. I can’t stand being interrupted online and I hate irrelevant ads, but I LOVE good viral videos and I love targeted ads. I realize that TV isn’t king anymore (or more specifically, for much longer). I realize that in an increasingly on-demand world, marketers can’t demand attention of Gen Y, they can only earn it.

If you’re a marketer seeking Generation Y’s dollars, ask yourself if you’ve honestly considered the changing landscape and changed your actions accordingly. It’s like they say, repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. How will you change your approach today to win Gen Y dollars tomorrow?

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